Tunnels
1979: the Eisenhower tunnel spans 1.7 miles through mountains west of Denver. At 11,000+ feet it is the highest point of the Interstate Highway System.[2]

Canals
1825: Erie Canal connects the great lakes to the Atlantic through NYC.[3]
1914: Panama Canal finished, cutting off 8,000 miles from the the NY to LA sea route.

Ports
April 6th 1776: defying British rule, all American colony ports are opened to international trade.[4]
Today: 360 commercial ports in the U.S. ship $1.73 million in goods, or 11% of total GDP [5]

Airports
1909: College Park Airport in Maryland is the oldest continually operating airport in the world. Founded by Wilbur Wright. [8]
Today: Over 640 million passengers and 19.6 billion pounds of shipped goods in 2013.[7]

Personally: Even with higher household earnings, we spend more money on transportation than other developed nations.
[% of household earnings spent on transportation]
America: 17.6%
Canada: 14%
EU: 13%
Japan: 12.5%

That’s $8,810 yearly per family![$50,054 x .176]

With 4.8 billion hours wasted in traffic jams in 2008.[9]
TO the tune of 3.9 billion gallons of gas.

Nationally: Freight bottlenecks and congestion cost about $200 billion[9]
Or 1.6% of the U.S. GDP in losses each year.

Chicago is the nations largest railroad center.
Due to congestion, it currently takes a freight train longer to travel through Chicago’s city limits than it takes for a train to travel from Chicago to L.A.

We’re not doing enough to remedy the solution
[% gdp spent on investment in new infrastructure]

Beijing-Shanghai
819 miles/168 Mph/5 hours
America’s passenger trains are slower than they were 50 years ago.

Highways–
131,723 miles of roads built just from 1988 to today!
(Enough to circle the Earth 5 times)

…Without a plan to take care of existing roads…

210 million daily trips are taken across deficient bridges in our 102 largest cities.[10]
1/4 American Bridges are functionally obsolete, or structurally deficient.
Including 77% of Washington D.C.’s bridges falling into these categories.

Ports–
The U.S. has fallen to 22nd for quality of port infrastructure
And is losing traffic abroad.

Airports–
High inefficiency=waste

1.) Are still using the same ground-based, radar system developed in the 1950’s.[9]
2.)1/3 of all U.S. flights pass through NY, magnifying any delays at NY’s 3 main airports across the country.[9]

Without a plan it’s only going to get worse.
Projected increase in travel and freight:[9]